Ex-Obama Lawyer Who Worked With Manafort On Ukraine Project Abruptly Leaves Law Firm

Greg Craig, the White House counsel for President Barack Obama, abruptly left his law firm as it has come under scrutiny from the special counsel’s investigation.

A spokeswoman for Skadden Arps confirmed to The Daily Caller News Foundation that Craig is no longer with the firm. She did not address whether his departure is related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

The website Above the Law first reported on Tuesday that Craig’s biography had been removed from Skadden Arps’ website.

Skadden Arps has come under scrutiny because of its work with Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, on behalf of the Ukrainian government in 2012. A team led by Craig helped produce a report that sought to justify the imprisonment of Yulia Tymoshenko, a political rival of Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president at the time and an ally of Vladimir Putin’s.

Mueller has indicted Manafort on charges of conspiracy against the U.S., conspiracy to launder money and failing to register as a foreign agent.

It is not clear whether Craig is in any legal jeopardy. But The New York Times reported in February that Craig was directly involved in promoting the Tymoshenko report to reporters and members of Congress. Neither Craig nor Skadden Arps registered as foreign agents for the work.

Another former Skadden lawyer, Alex van der Zwaan, has pleaded guilty to Mueller’s prosecutors for lying about his contacts with Rick Gates, a former Manafort business partner, and a Ukrainian consultant with links to Russia’s spy agencies.

Van der Zwaan, who worked closely with Craig on the Ukraine project, claimed that he lied to investigators because he did not want to reveal that he had secretly recorded conversations with Gates and a Skadden Arps law partner. The law partner is not identified in court filings. Van der Zwaan was fired by Skadden Arps in November, shortly after he was first interviewed by Mueller’s team.

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